What are you doing for Silvester? If you’re not sure what I mean, I understand. Unless you are German or you’ve lived in Germany (or in my case, are married to someone who lived in Germany while growing up a military kid), I wouldn’t expect that you would have heard this term used for New Year’s Eve. Yet, today in Germany, Silvester IS the word used for New Year’s Eve Day. All over Germany, the Germans are inviting each other over to eat the traditional raclette and shoot off fireworks for their…not New Year’s Eve…but their Silvester parties.
Why Silvester, you may ask? Though Catholicism continues to wane in Germany, her rich Catholic heritage still shines forth since Silvester comes directly from the Catholic Church’s feast today of Pope Saint Sylvester. A Pope in the early 300’s, Pope Sylvester lived in a time where a monumental shift occurred in the Catholic Church. His unique lifetime allowed him to create prayers and customs that we still use today at Mass, two of which are the Nicene Creed and the use of the most important and sacred linen called the Corporal.
As a Catholic, Sylvester lived part of his life while Christianity was outlawed and part where Christianity was protected by the emperor. When he was born in Rome in the late 200’s, he only would have known that mostly all previous Popes had been martyred for their faith. Despite this, Sylvester ended up becoming a Priest. He was alive when the persecution of Christians broke out under the ruthless and cruel Emperor Diocletian. As Christians were constantly being put to the test of offering sacrifice to pagan idols, Sylvester was also there to strengthen the confessors and martyrs to keep their faith. Then, in 312, a new era set in with the Emperor Constantine. Declaring himself the protector of the Christians, Constantine made Christianity legal and began to help build Churches. A couple years later in 314, Sylvester was elected Pope. For the next 21 years, Sylvester would be the first Pope to rule the Church in security and peace.
Now that the Church did not have to deal with threats from without, she could finally begin to set down precise theological terminology to answer the question, “Who is Jesus?” This was necessary as various Christological heresies arose that needed to be sifted through the lens of apostolic teaching. One of these heresies, Arianism, maintained that the Son of God was created by the Father and was therefore neither coeternal with the Father, nor consubstantial. As this heresy was very influential and began to divide the Church, Emperor Constantine himself called an Ecumenical Council in 325 to decide the issue. While he didn’t attend himself, Pope St. Sylvester sent two legates to represent him and to finally blot out Arianism by affirming that Jesus is God. Pope St. Sylvester I is thought to have devised the Greek term consubstantial to describe the divine nature of the Son in relation to the Father. The term was incorporated into a creed at the First Council of Nicaea to signify the equality of the Son and the Father. We, of course, pray this Nicene Creed at each Mass.
A proper understanding of who Jesus Christ is has consequences in all directions. Not only does it affect the words we pray, the way we see Jesus, the reverence we give Him…but it also affects how we worship Him. According to the Liber Pontificalis (a biography of the first popes), Pope Sylvester first decreed that the Sacrifice of the Mass should be celebrated on a linen corporal. The corporal, which comes from the Latin word “corpus” meaning “body”, is a square of fine linen cloth with a cross embroidered in the center. The fact that it is made of linen is noteworthy as linen signifies the labor and mortification necessary in purifying ourselves, as the stems of the flax plant must be beaten, purified and bleached in order to be whitened. Like in Pope Saint Sylvester’s time, today it is the most important of the sacred linens since the Body and Blood of Our Lord will rest upon it and any small particles will be safely enclosed within it to be properly purified later.
It is amazing that the decisions of Pope St Sylvester in the 300’s are still seen today; the Catholic Church has deeply thought-out reasons for everything she does. Today, it seems especially appropriate to pray for Germany that all of her people will be able to see the strong roots laid down by the Catholic Church throughout the centuries that connect us to Jesus Christ and His Apostles. May Pope St. Sylvester pray that they all be grafted onto this vine, and that those already on the vine will grow and bear abundant fruit. May Pope St. Sylvester also pray that we all will have a happy and holy Silvester as we ring in 2025.
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